According to a report from The Tallahassee Democrat, Frank Price from Tallahassee, FL was the person who found the title belt.
According to Price, he and his family were driving home from Port St. Joe Bay when they saw a velvet bag on Highway 20 near Capital Circle Southwest. He claims he didn’t look in the bag until they got home. He said, “I think I said something like, ‘Whoa, it’s a huge wrestling belt, check this thing out!’ I never would have guessed that if I had a lifetime of guesses.”
Price says he initially thought it was a replica or costume belt, saying, “At that time there was nothing in the news about anything being lost or stolen. So we thought it was just a replica or a costume or something like that.”
Price went online and posted the belt in a “Lost & Found on Craigslist Tallahassee” page. He says it wasn’t until later that people started pointing out to him the reports of the stolen AEW title belt that he’d realized he had found Jericho’s lost title. Price then called the Tallahassee Police Department and brought the belt to an investigator. He answered some questions on how he found it and it was determined that he was not the culprit and simply just found it.
While Price was at the police station, he met Mike’s Limousine owner, Mike Vaughn, who had given Jericho the ride to Longhorn Steakhouse. Vaughn was apparently at the station to file an insurance claim for the missing title belt and was very happy that it was found. As a reward, he gave Price $200 for locating it.
Price said, “I think what happened is they just set it on the trunk of the limo and it just fell off. The only other possibility is that it was part of a pro-wrestling plot setup. They need all the publicity they can get.”
The original AEW Championship belt is back in the hands of Chris Jericho now.
